


Mission Status: Bloody

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k18 [14]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood, Gen, Injury, Missions Gone Wrong, Prompt: Doesn't realize they're injured, humans are wild and kolivan is concerned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 21:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16333523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: A Blade mission goes a little sideways.





	Mission Status: Bloody

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't quite as angsty as anyone is probably expecting so... I'm sorry? But I hope you like it anyway.

The vent was dark, lit only by the blue screen before him. Carefully the Blade leader followed the different colored dots on the map, the trackers indicating the other three agents as they moved through the base, copying and archiving all of the intel they sent to him. They were all spread across the massive warship, downloading dozens of terabytes of different information in what was possibly the biggest single intel gathering mission on record. 

The timer in the lower right hand of the screen ticked down. Four doboshes, twenty seven ticks until they all had to be on the escape shuttle. 

“Sound off,” he murmured into his comms, not loud enough to echo in the metal vent. There was just a moment of radio silence before he got a response.

“Ilun here, moving back to the ship.” As he said, the blue dot was heading in the direction of the shuttle, with four doboshes and three ticks on the clock. 

“Vrek here, thirty ticks remaining on download.” The purple dot was near enough to make it to the shuttle in that time, with a dobosh or two to spare. 

The one that worried him was the red dot, the farthest away and the deepest into the ship. 

“Keith here, entering the room now.”

Kolivan frowned under his mask. “You should’ve been in the room two doboshes ago.”

“I know.” Keith’s answer was tense and irritated. “Ran into some drones.”

He eyed the timer. Three doboshes and sixteen ticks. 

“Hurry.”

Fifteen ticks later his map flared blue, just as Ilun’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Aboard the shuttle and clear for extraction.”

“Good. Vrek?”

“On my way, ETA forty ticks.”

He waited, but the third voice didn’t come, and the red dot didn’t move on the map.

“Keith, sound off.”

“Here,” said the human boy gruffly. “Downloading.”

His frown deepened, but he said nothing more and waited until the map glowed purple.

“Clear,” said Vrek, and Kolivan turned to make his own way to the shuttle after one last glance at the timer. Two doboshes and nine ticks remaining, and Keith’s dot still hadn’t moved.

He made it to the waiting ship after only disposing of one drone and found the other two agents waiting for him, both thankfully unharmed. The moment he returned he opened his map again. 

One dobosh even, and Keith was only halfway back.

“Keith?”

His breath came through panting when he answered. “On my way.”

“ETA?”

“Dunno. Just let me--” A clang of metal came through, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of wires sparking. “I’ll be there.”

Kolivan took a deep, cleansing breath. He swore that you could send the former Red Paladin into an empty forest on an empty planet in an empty system and he’d still find something to fight. Feigning calm, he settled into his seat on the shuttle and watched the map with sharp eyes as the timer ticked ever lower.

Forty-five ticks. 

Thirty. 

Twenty.

“Keith, sound off.” His tracking dot was still several hallways away.

“I’m coming.”

Ten ticks. 

The dot wasn’t close enough.

“Keith.”

“Almost--”

The door on the shuttle began to close. 

Five. Four. Three. Two--

Keith was barely scrawny enough to fit through the door as it shut, tumbling into the shuttle and landing with a thud. Neither Kolivan nor the other two Blades moved from their seats as the shuttle took off, but Keith didn’t seem bothered, he merely held up his inteltab for Kolivan to see, and when he dismissed his mask he was wearing a triumphant grin underneath.

“You cut that far too close,” Kolivan growled as Keith pulled himself up from the floor.

“But I still made it.” His breath was still hammering in his chest, making the whole thing heave, and Kolivan inspected him a little more closely. The light in the shuttle was low and he wasn’t an expert in humans by any means, but he was fairly sure he wasn’t usually that pale white. Looking back at the floor, something dark gleamed. 

Keith approached, holding out the inteltab with a trembling hand. Kolivan took it, but cast an assessing glance over him as he did so.

“Were you injured?” 

“Dunno,” was the irritating answer. “Adrenaline’s still pumping.”

Kolivan wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but he soon forgot about it when he opened his map and saw how the light gleamed over the side of Keith’s torso. Something on his suit was wet. 

A displeased rumble grew in his chest, and he swapped to a proper light function, pulling Keith closer by his wrist. Just as he’d suspected the suit was torn open on his left side, and underneath was a decent sized slash. Red poured from the wound, soaking the material of his suit and running underneath, probably leaving stains on both his hands and the inteltab he’d tossed to the side. 

“Kit,” he grumbled, prodding at the wound and receiving a hiss and a jerk in response. “You  _ are  _ injured.” He held up the light so that the paladin could see, and for a moment Keith just stared down at it with blank eyes.

“Oh,” he murmured, then promptly crumbled to the floor. 

* * *

The Blade of Marmora didn’t have cryopod technology, but they had something that was almost as good. Once the injury was cleaned and bandaged, the patches they affixed over the top would have it healed in a quintant or less, and the injured party would regain consciousness within a few vargas. 

Meaning: Keith couldn’t escape Kolivan’s wrath. 

The moment he was informed that the kit had awoken he made his way down to the med bay, ready to give him the lecture of a lifetime. He found him laid out on one of their cots, eyes half slitted open. He’d apparently been expecting Kolivan, as he raised a hand in greeting but didn’t say anything.

Kolivan sat on the edge of the cot, leaning his elbows on his knees and clenching his hands together. He let the tension build for a moment, then spoke.

“You cannot continue a mission injured like that.”

Keith huffed, displacing a lock of his strange black hair. “I know.” 

“The moment you are injured you call for an extraction. No exceptions.”

“I know.”

“You could’ve compromised the mission.”

_ “I know.” _

“Then why did you do it?”

The kit gave an exasperated sigh and stared up at the ceiling. “I told you before, adrenaline was pumping. I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice?” Kolivan’s voice dropped into a growl. “How could you not notice something like that? What is this adrenaline you keep speaking of?”

Keith blinked for a moment, confused, and then his expression cleared and he turned back to Kolivan. “It’s a hormone that humans release in dangerous situations. It heightens our reaction time, it can make us stronger or faster sometimes, and it can dull pain. I was halfway through a fight with four drones when it happened-- I knew I’d been hit but it didn’t hurt, so I just kept going.”

Kolivan, for the first time in many decaphoebs, was speechless. He’d never heard of such a thing, in any species, and for a moment he was stunned by the sheer durability of the human. Surely they were smaller than Galra and their skin was easily broken, blood easily spilled, but even afterwards they could just… keep going. He’d heard the stories of the Champion, he’d seen Keith’s trials, but the idea didn’t truly sink in until that moment. 

Humans, apparently, were indestructible.

He cleared his throat, suddenly aware that he had been staring and Keith was smirking at him like the impudent kit that he was. 

“Well,” he said, fishing for something to say, “Pay more attention to your body in the future, even if there is no pain.”

“Yes, sir.” 

He sat there awkwardly for another moment, Keith still looking at him with that sly grin, before he finally rose to his feet and hurried from the med bay. 

Well. If these were the types of creatures they had defending the universe, they might just stand a chance.

  
  



End file.
